Mark Millar on the Casting of Jim Carrey in Kick-Ass 2

Two weeks ago, it was reported that Universal Pictures was in talks with Jim Carrey to play Colonel Stars in Kick-Ass 2.

While the studio hasn’t confirmed the casting, director Jeff Wadlow (Never Back Down) first hinted on Twitter that it was a done deal. On September 1st, he posted: “6 days till we start shooting… and we officially have our Colonel. Alrighty f’n then!”

Creator Mark Millar has followed that up with this post on his Forums about the casting:

Matthew Vaughn, Jeff Wadlow and I did a conference call with Jim a couple of weeks back and we’ve been itching to talk about this ever since because the energy Jim’s going to bring to Colonel Stars has me buzzing as much as Nic Cage with Big Daddy. You have to remember that Big Daddy’s role before Cage came on was a much more straightforward bad-ass. It was Nic who gave him that Adam West delivery and brought this incredible warmth to the character, especially with regard to Mindy.

Nic is really good friends with Jim Carrey and it’s well known to everyone that Jim loved the first movie. In fact, I think he had lunch with Vaughn the day before that Conan O’Brien kick-Ass/ Superman duet you can see in the link. So we’ve been talking very informally about this for a little over two years now. We didn’t quite know what Jim was going to be doing in the sequel, but the entire team loves him to bits and I’ve been a fan since I first saw him. I remember reading an interview with Spielberg, a great one back in Empire for a Jaws anniversary, where he was saying that Jim would be his choice for Chief Brodie were he shooting Jaws now. He said he could see the brilliant dramatic range Jim had as well as the comedy people knew him for at that time. For all these reasons, combined with the conversation we had with him on the phone, I’m so genuinely excited about this. I can’t wait to see what he does once the cameras are on.

So as you can see from the online reports there’s a Hell of a cast shaping up here. The movie runs from Hit-Girl #1 to Kick-Ass 2 #7 and fans of the comic will know that the part of Uncle Ralphie is still to be announced. He’s the big-bad from the Hit-Girl series and you, my friends, are in for a treat.

But this is all incredibly cool. Millarworld has had two movies released so far and several in various stages of production right now (another one starts shooting in the New Year). But I think this is the closest to starstruck I’ve been on anything so far. LOVE Jim Carrey. Can’t wait to meet him at Pinewood.

MM

PS A lot of people have been asking what Kick-Ass graphic novels are available in stores and the answer is below…

Kick-Ass 1
Kick-Ass 2
Hit-Girl mini-series.

Hit-Girl bridges the gap between the first two stories and is the first 30 mins of the Kick-Ass 2 movie. Issues 1 and 2 have third printings out this week and issue 3 is out the week after next. Issues 4 and 5, concluding the series, are out in October and November. The series will be collected into a hardcover early in the New Year as Johnny and I move into Kick-Ass 3.